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It is the responsibility of Local Authorities to plan, develop and deliver flood protection schemes and other flood resilience actions.

It is best practice for options development to be carried out by local authorities using an appraisal framework. The options should go through a robust and transparent appraisal of costs and benefits, and positive and adverse impacts in order to deliver best use of public money taking full account of economic, environmental and social priorities

The Scottish Government remains committed to developing plans to deliver free breakfasts to all primary and special school children.

The Scottish Government worked with AssistFM and the Improvement Service from September 2023 to June 2024 to map breakfast provision across Scotland at both local authority and school level. A survey of all primary and special schools showed that almost half are already delivering breakfast provision. We will use the information provided by this mapping exercise to develop plans to build on this provision in line with our commitment.

In addition, we are delivering free or subsidised school age childcare through our Early Adopter Communities and Scottish Football Association ‘Extra Time’ projects, many of which include free breakfast club places for children from families most at risk of living in poverty.

The breakdown of CalMac scheduled sailings defined as (a) on time, (b) Level 1 Lateness and (c) Level 2 Lateness in each month since March 2023, including performance deductions incurred, are available in a table placed in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre, Bib Number 62561.

The following table details annual spend on signage on the trunk road network during the period 2021 to 2024 within the Scottish Parliament Highland and Islands electoral region. These figures include spend on sign plates, sign poles and sign bases.

Signage on Local Authority roads is a matter for the relevant Local Authority.

Non-domestic rates are administered by local councils, and the Scottish Government does not routinely hold information on the amounts actually paid by individual businesses or properties. However, we are able to estimate the amounts some property types would have been liable for in some years where individual property level relief data has been collected nationally.

Table 1 presents estimated historic rateable values and estimates of net non-domestic rates income for hotels, public houses, and restaurants. Property level reliefs data, and therefore net income estimates, for years before 2012-13, and for 2014-2015, 2017-2018, and 2023-2024 are not available, and are not yet available for 2024-2025.

Hospitality premises are identified by property classes “public houses and restaurants” and “hotels”. Property class is a classification used by Scottish Assessors to describe the type of property, and does not necessarily accurately reflect the use of a property. There may be properties within those classes which are not actually used for hospitality, and properties within other classes which are used for hospitality. Rateable values are as at 1 April in each financial year, and do not take into account any subsequent changes, even if backdated. A revaluation occurred in 2017-2018, and in 2023-2024. Reliefs information is derived from councils’ billing data, as at end April 2012, 1 October 2013, 8 October 2015, 5 October 2016, 1 June 2018, 31 May 2019, 1 July 2020, 1 June 2021, and 1 July 2022. The relief percentages reported in these billing data snapshots are applied to the gross income estimates based on rateable values on 1 April in each year to derive the net estimates. Net income in 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 was affected by the Retail, Hospitality, and Leisure (RHL) relief introduced in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. RHL relief awarded in 2022-2023 is not included, as this relief was not reported on the 2022 billing snapshot. Figures are rounded to the nearest £100,000.

Table 1: Total rateable value and estimated net NDR income related to hotels, public houses, and restaurants

As announced on 21 August as part of emergency budget controls, the Fairer Workplaces Fund 2024 to 2025 has been cancelled.

This is just one of a number of spending plans that we have been forced to withdraw due to the extremely challenging financial position faced by the Scottish Government following the continuing effects of Brexit, the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the cost of living crisis, alongside UK Government spending decisions. This does not in any way change our commitment to Fair Work or desire to promote Fair Work in Scotland. We continue to take forward the range of actions within the Fair Work Action Plan and to embed Fair Work throughout the delivery of the programme for government.

All Scottish quota is issued in line with the requirements of the UK Fisheries Act 2020.

On 7 June 2024, the Scottish Government published the outcome of its consultation on the allocation of Additional Quota. Additional Quota is the extra quota the UK receives following EU exit.

As part of Scotland’s Fisheries Management Strategy 2020-2030, the Scottish Government committed to the maintenance of FQA system as the primary method of allocating Exiting Quota (the UK’s established share of quota prior to leaving the EU) following stakeholder feedback.

The independent Minimum Income Guarantee Expert Group commissioned a public participation charity to appoint an Experts by Experience Panel to ensure the policy is developed with the voices and experiences of financial insecurity at its core. Panel members were initially recruited through a civic lottery database, additional recruitment then took place through the Expert Group member’s organisations, following an extension of the project. Further details regarding the recruitment process are available online at: Minimum Income Guarantee: Experts by Experience Panel report - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

The work to define a Minimum Income Guarantee for Scotland, including the role of social security, continues to be led by an independent Expert Group. the Expert Group’s Interim report which published in March 2024, contained recommendations for actions around social security elements of a Minimum Income Guarantee. The report is available at: Minimum Income Guarantee Expert Group: Interim report - gov.scot (www.gov.scot). The Chair of the Expert Group also brought early thinking on the vision for the social security aspects of a Minimum Income Guarantee to the Steering Group meeting on 27 March this year. The minutes for that meeting can be found at Minimum Income Guarantee Steering Group minutes: March 2024 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot). The Scottish Government look forward to receiving the recommendations for the Expert Group’s final report later this year and will respond in due course.

Transport Scotland will consider suitable reliability targets in the next contract. As part of monitoring performance we will ensure these reflect the lived customer experiences. Using enhanced Performance Indicators, reliability statistics will be reported through the Enhancement and Change Plan, which has been developed in collaboration with CalMac and was published on 25 July 2024.